Rob McElhenney’s Challenge Has No Winners—But Still Awards a Prize

Rob gave the Fandom a challenge on Thursday: work out what the episode on the board is and win $100, and he gave us exactly twenty-four hours to do so. 

Unfortunately, at 5pm on Friday he announced “no one got anywhere close,” which means we’ll have to wait a couple more months to find out how Charlie Day’s cryptic notes end up being the season finale (!!news). 

So that should have been the end of that. No one got close, ah well, put on your clown noses if you were convinced you’d cracked it and take another look at Charlie’s board if you’re really that obsessed. But not me because 1) I’m stubborn with a bit of an inflated ego when it comes to knowing Sunny (even the shit that hasn’t hit our eyes yet) and 2) He tweeted this Friday evening while I was a shot of tequila and a few beers deep on an empty stomach. 

Now I’m not saying I’m convinced my friends and I got it right regardless of what Rob claims, but my drunk brain was definitely saying that. So I tweeted a reply. And I drank some more and I tweeted my thoughts, and I tweeted I think he’s lying, and I continued to drink while I tweeted some more thoughts, directly to Rob this time, and then an hour passed and I tweeted “release the s16 scripts anyway idk” and then I drank some more. And then Rob McElhenney quoted me.  

But before I go any further, let’s back up so I can explain why I drunk tweeted about a release of the Season 16 scripts in the midst of this.  

See, Thursday night when I sat down to crack the Season 17 episode, I collaborated with some friends who are just as insane about this show as I am. We spent two hours on the phone, and then another couple hours via text and Notes app to put everything together and come up with what we were pretty certain was the episode Charlie and Rob were writing. Pulling directly from Charlie’s white board, our notes ended up as follows:

1. 
   [REDACTED] with Frank
2. Clips of Frank [REDACTED] (meeting Girls? Investors?) 
   
3. Talks __ too OLD
4. Cock chews ages/info 
5. Sam Frank DATE
6. In stocio meets [REDACTED]
7. Have two of//tour visit paddy’s 
8. Dennis/Dee Sam
9. Mac/Charlie Sam
10. F gang most/meets/moment ch-
11. Dennis and Dee w/ Chew
12. Mac and Charlie w/ Chew
13. Taking last gang 
14. Dennis brings Charlie’s
15. Taking [REDACTED] Frank Begs?
16. Frank dumps Sam because she doesn’t put out 
17. F b,ing Chew / test goes wrong 
18. To stocio eruption/explanation  
19. Frank to get ___  to make up 
20. In [REDACTED] 

Which, I’ll admit, kinda seems like nonsense typed out instead of written in Charlie’s handwriting, but hear us out here, there is a way to approach this:

Drawing from connections between certain words and ideas, there’s a pretty clear thread of Frank dating a woman named Sam, with the Gang interspersed in pairings (Dennis & Dee and Charlie & Mac), and something or someone called “Chew”. Our first thought was that, given the all caps “OLD” lead in, perhaps the Gang has told Frank he’s too old to be dating and he tries to prove otherwise by dating two people at once, hence the Gang with Sam and then the Gang with Chew. And while that seemed like a solid idea, there was no real Sunny aspect we could pull from that. Aside from “Frank is old,” what’s the spoof, where’s the satirical element, what are they ripping on? There has to be something in here we’re missing…

While we ruminated on what the overall joke could be, the word “Chew” kept sticking out to us. It appears over and over, and there’s a parallel of Chew to Sam, which may mean it’s two people… but there’s differences in how Charlie Day writes the Chew parts to the Sam parts (i.e. having “w/” following M+C for Chew but not Sam), so perhaps it’s not a person but a thing. And in considering that, I threw out a joke, “Hey what if this whole episode is actually just a sponsor for BlueChew because they miss the Podcast advertisers,” and no one laughed. I clarified that BlueChew is a viagra pill just like Hims, a viagra pill they used to have as a sponsor on The Always Sunny Podcast, and while having to explain your joke is never going to make someone retroactively laugh, the funny thing is it actually led us to what the Sunny plot here could be. Maybe it is just that. A shitpost (in part) on themselves. 

Last season Celebrity Booze: The Ultimate Cash Grab was a spoof on the fact that Rob, Charlie, and Glenn, themselves, had recently stepped into the market of celebrity liquors. Since the whiteboard episode in question is being written by Rob and Charlie (and probably Glenn), the chance that it’s full of jokes on themselves is fairly high, and what better to rip on than the fact that 1) they advertised a viagra product on their (now dead) Podcast and 2) they’re all getting old. 

With the word “Cock” ahead of the first instance of “Chew” following the all-caps OLD being followed by Frank on a DATE, the connections began to flow:

• Sam = woman Frank is dating
• Cock Chew = BlueChew/viagra/boner pill
• Gang meets Sam and then gets involved with the Chew (pairings Dennis&Dee/Mac&Charlie have different motivations...)
• Dennis goes off with Charlie’s 
• Frank can’t test the product because Sam won’t put out
• Eruption/Climax - pills go wrong ?

And the idea basically wrote itself:

"Struggling with erectile dysfunction in his old age, Frank gets the Gang involved in a new product to enhance his sex life.”

Locked in, we tweeted our guess(es) to Rob, and as it was a group effort (and because we really didn’t care about making $100 here, this is all for the love of the game), I followed up on our submission with the following reply:

Which takes us back to the beginning of this story, explaining that one final drunk tweet in all of this, resulting in Rob’s quote tweet:

Yes, the Dropbox contains all of the Season 16 scripts (mostly Production Drafts!), which you can read here. 

So, a prize was awarded as a result of this little game, though not exactly directly. But for Rob to understand what my tweet meant means he very likely saw our submission and the reply (and maybe a few of my other drunk tweets, sorry Rob), and offered up the scripts based on that knowledge, giving us exactly what we asked for in the case in which our guess was correct. Which now begs the question: does that… in a way…perhaps somewhat…say something about our guess? Or was this just done purely out of the goodness of his heart, a consolation prize? (Or due to my persistent badgering? Or the fact that he saw I saw drunk at a bar and thought it would be funny to do it now?)

Only time can truly tell, but I do think it’ll be a shame if they never do an episode of Sunny that spoofs on their prior Podcast advertisers…especially one so pertinent to former Sunny dialogue.

But one thing is for certain, it sure will be fun to come back to Charlie Day’s whiteboard once the episode airs! (Or even once we get the synopsis…or even the Season 17 summary…)

Go enjoy those Season 16 scripts!!

-Seth

Season 17 is On the Board — Literally!

This afternoon, Rob McElhenney tweeted out a very interesting photo from inside the Season 17 writers’ room:

Along with the caption, “100 dollars to anyone who can figure out what this episode is. You have one day.”

Whether the cash offer is real or not remains to be seen, but the writing definitely seems to be appurtenant to an actual episode being written, so this is now our first official look at a Season 17 plot (if you can decipher any of it). 

D+D is clearly Dennis and Dee, similarly M+C is definitely Mac and Charlie and F stands for Frank. Even at a glance, you can probably tell there’s a lot of F’s on that board and the plot is likely Frank-centric…and there’s a new name, Sam, that keeps popping up. 

But outside of the names, working out Charlie Day’s shorthand is not an easy task, so the likelihood of decoding what this episode is about, coupled with the fact that they clearly haven’t finished writing out every point, is pretty slim. (Though if it’s simply his handwriting that’s slowing you down, you can always refer to the Who Pooped the Bed? Whiteboard monologue for some guidance.) 

I spent about two hours with some friends working to decode what’s going on here, and I think we have a really solid guess (at least to the idea of the A plot). On the off-chance the money offer is real, I’m saving sharing it for tomorrow. I’ll be back to throw it on here after the “one day” deadline has elapsed (or, in the case in which Rob acknowledges anyone who is correct, write about what the plot actually is). 

Anyone else think they’ve got a good guess? 

Exciting stuff!!

-Seth

I’ll give you this one, if you’re really lost:

“16. Frank dumps Sam ‘cause she doesn’t put out”

Glenn Howerton Serves Scraps of Season 17 Information

 Friday the 20th of September, 2024, Glenn Howerton is in New York shooting his new Netflix series, Sirens, and with a little free time at night he hit the bars in the village—so of course I am on the scene. I got to talk to him for a solid five minutes about Sunny, which was really awesome. The main conversation point being, obviously, Season 17:

    Without the Podcast this year, we’re pretty much in the dark on what’s happening in the writers room, and with Glenn very much back and forth between the coasts of the United States, the immediate question on everyone’s minds, and the one I made sure to promptly address, was if Glenn was in the writer’s room this year. 

    In short: yes, Glenn is writing this season. He’s been involved with breaking stories with the guys but not as active in the writers room due to shooting Sirens. Rob and Charlie are really taking the brunt of the writing this season. Glenn told us we probably won’t see him on a script this season with Charlie Day, but we “definitely” will next season. So, if you were waiting for that hard confirmation that Season 18 is going forward, wait no longer. It’s happening, for sure. 

    As for production information, they "start shooting in about three weeks,” which I think is best estimated as the second week of October (Soon! That’s very soon!), and they’ve already begun writing scripts. Glenn confirmed Meg is not involved with this season (neither writing nor directing), on her own accord, but stated he’d imagine she’ll probably come back at some point, though he doesn’t know for sure (basically, it’s Meg’s choice). The Chernin brothers are back, as we know, and Glenn nodded to the idea that we’re looking for some good Dee storylines out of the two of them. On the same train of thought as potential directors, Glenn had a very interesting response to being asked if Randall Einhorn might direct this season. “He’s doing Abbott..and I’m not..on Abbott..not necessarily.” So, if you’re still doubting the Abbott Elementary crossover is with Sunny, well, maybe hedge your bets on that one. 

    As for the possibility of teasing any Season 17 storylines? Well, Glenn said he can’t tip his hat, because we don’t want to know (i.e. be spoiled). But, while Glenn’s lips are sealed on plots, he did let us know that it’s been a great writers room this year, “an all-star room,” in fact, and breaking the stories has been a lot of fun. Again, no spoilers, but they’re taking “some big swings this year.”

    Seeing Glenn was great, and this little conversation on 17 has given me a lot of confidence as to what we’re going to get this season. Things seem promising, Season 18 is a go, and the Abbott crossover is definitely in the cards. 

    Until next time (perhaps tomorrow), 

Seth.